1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a process for the treatment of dried aspartame, and to aspartame thus recovered.
2. Description of the Related Art
Aspartame is a sweetener that is often used in low-calorie lemonades, sugar-free chewing gum and low-calorie sweeteners. Aspartame is often sold as a "powder" consisting of particles smaller than 1 mm. This powder usually has a wide particle size distribution: there is a significant fraction of particles with sizes between 0 and 20 .mu.m, 20-50 .mu.m, etc. This type of product appears to be (1) relatively poorly soluble, (2) electrostatically chargeable, (3) non-free-flowing, (4) the cause of dust problems, (5) difficult to dose and (6) poorly dispersible in water.
In order to prevent some of these problems, aspartame is sometimes sold of which 90 wt. % of the particles are between, say, 250 and 750 .mu.m. This aspartame, however, has a relatively low dissolution rate. In addition, it presents the drawback that a special treatment, for example a granulation step, is required afterwards to process undesired material (aspartame with particle sizes outside this range).
The present invention provides a process for the treatment of dried aspartame with which a product of a very high quality and good dissolution rate is obtained and with which only very little material need be reprocessed.